https://betanews.com/article/why-is-ibm-sneaking-around/
3 replies (most recent on top)
Yeah that post is 14 years old but IBM started to intentionally self destruct itself under Gerstner who walked away after 9 years with over $400,000,000. Cringely wrote scathing articles about IBM but the vast majority of it was spot on.
Given the date and data on this article, we can judge if IBM has been successfully. What was the USA headcount in 2015? According to the 5500 IRS form approx 92k. What was the 2024 USA head count (5500 info tends to be a year behind so we have to use 2024 data). Approx 51k. So 92 - 51 =41. At 1 billion per 10k headcount means IBM has dropped 4 billion to the bottom line if those heads were eliminated. More realistically they just moved to India, so 1.3 billion needs to be added to pay the new hires in India, and IBM nets 2.7 billion. Rinse and repeat in other first world nations (Northern Europe, Australia, etc etc) and you get 5.4 billion to the bottom line. So what did IBM do with the 5.4 billion savings? They changed their business model and bought innovation vs developing it. Thus reinforcing offshoring and lowering the first world headcount populations. Nice work for the IBM exec’s if you can get it.
Cringely strikes again with perfect insights and "the truth" about IBM ... as opposed to the Wall Street version. This needs much wider distribution. Perhaps to Pro Publica. Glad to be rid of this group of mo--ns.